'It can kill healthy trees in a couple of years': specialist

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Officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have declared a quarantine in the Sheppard Avenue East and Hwy. 404 area after uncovering an infestation of the emerald ash borer.

The beetle is an invasive alien species from central Asia that likely arrived in North America in the early 1990s, first presenting itself in Detroit.

Over the past few years, the insects have moved through southwestern Ontario. According to Kent Marchant, the CFIA's lead specialist on emerald ash borers, the agency discovered evidence of the infestation at a townhouse complex at Brian Drive and Sheppard Avenue East three weeks ago.

"They were first found about two or three weeks ago and confirmed after the scientific analysis of the larva," he said.

The tiny bright-green insects are harmless to humans, but their larvae attack ash trees voraciously, boring under their bark and killing the trees within two years. Pesticides don't work on them, and even clear-cutting - as is done when dealing with the infestation of the Asian longhorn beetle - doesn't work.

And unlike the Asian longhorn beetle, the ember ash borer is almost impossible to detect, until it's too late to save the tree.

"The ember ash borer is considered one of the very worst species of beetle to ever enter North America," he said. "It can kill trees very quickly and all by itself - it can kill healthy trees in a couple of years."

The infestation could ultimately wipe out all of the ash trees in Toronto, about 30,000 on public right-of-ways, representing six per cent of all of Toronto's public tree canopy. To try and stave that off, the CFIA has imposed a quarantine in a five-kilometre radius from the site, prohibiting the movement of ash firewood within the area and other ash tree materials including tree nursery stock, logs, lumber and wood packaging.

There won't likely be any culling of trees, as has happened in the city's west end where the Asian longhorn beetle infestation has taken hold, but the agency may cut down infested trees for study.

City of Toronto forestry officials, meanwhile, are providing support for the federal agency. And they're stepping up their own vigilance looking for signs of infestations elsewhere in the city.

"We do wish to assist with this so we're doing things like collecting information on outstanding service orders in the area, so we can work through those more quickly with a focus on looking for the insects," said Beth McKeown, Toronto's manager of forestry and natural environment. "We have a number of ash tree removal requests and pruning requests, so we're starting to go through with the removal requests, to look to se if they're infected."

Anyone in the area who believes they have an infestation can obtain additional information on the CFIA website at www.inspection.gc.ca or by calling 1-866-463-6017.